where the same phenomenon had occurred. He then passed on to the question of the standard of the currency, which he said was becoming endangered by this continued depreciation. Indeed, the argument in favour of a deterioration of the coin grew stronger every day. The very argument of justice, after a certain time, passes over to the side of deterioration. If we have been only two or three years using a depreciated paper, justice is on the side of the former standard; if ten or twenty years have passed since paper fell, it may be deemed unfair to restore the ancient standard. He concluded by strongly urging Parliament to return to the ancient standard before it was too late.

84. Mr. Vansittart, who moved the counter-resolutions to Mr. Horner, controverted, at great length, the principles of the Report. He asserted that the only mode in which a metallic currency could have a favourable effect on the exchanges was by exportation, and that if exportation was prohibited by law, no effect could be produced. The amazing absurdity of this assertion has been sufficiently proved in the course of this work to need repetition here. These assertions, however, were sober good sense compared to the lengths of wild extravagance into which he subsequently plunged. He said that the first seven resolutions argued on the supposition that the standard was something visible and tangible. "I affirm that a standard, in the sense used by these gentlemen, namely, a fixed and invariable weight of the precious metals as a measure of value never existed in this country!!" He ridiculed the idea of the resolution that the weight at which any such money is authorised to pass current is fixed!! These extraordinary ideas he attempted to support by reference to the degraded state the coin had been in at different periods, but which were yet legal tender, and which, he contended, proved that the coin was not any definite weight of bullion. It was upon this point, he said, that the question of depreciation depended. "Now, I do not consider myself bound either to admit or deny that Bank notes have lost a value which they never possessed, and which the legal coin of the country never possessed, namely, a value estimated by a fixed weight of gold or silver bullion. They never had any other than current value, founded on the public

VOL. II.

E

confidence in the Bank, and this value, I firmly believe, and have distinctly stated in my third proposition, that they possess as much as ever." When the whole of the rest of his speech was a mere repetition and development of such crazy ideas, it is mere waste of time to give any more details of it. There is one more specimen, however, which we cannot refrain from extracting. He says-"It appears, then, that a diminution of the value of currency may have the effect of improving the exchange, but cannot by possibility depress it!!" Which means that the more debased and worthless the currency of a country is, the more favourable should be the foreign exchanges, or the higher should foreigners estimate it. So that, while the French assignats were daily falling lower and lower at home, the more should foreigners have given for them: so that, while the French themselves gave one livre in coin for 1,200 in assignats, the English and other foreigners ought to have given their full nominal value in coin, and even more than that according to Mr. Vansittart. He then made several triumphant observations about there being no difference in transactions between Bank notes and coin. He admitted that he had been a member of the Irish Committee of 1804, and had concurred in the opinion that Irish Bank notes were depreciated, but he said that the two cases were not parallel; for it appeared not only that the current coin was openly sold at a premium, but that an established difference of price existed between payments in coin and in Irish paper, while Bank of England paper passed as equivalent to guineas. This depreciation, however, he denied had proceeded from excessive issues, but from the political circumstances of the period.

85. Such were the leading arguments against the conclusions of the Committee, which, though somewhat varied in expression, were constantly repeated. After the exposition given in our chapter on the Coinage, it would be waste of time to attempt seriously to disprove the outrageous folly of the proposition, that the coins of Great Britain never were intended to contain any fixed or certain quantity of gold or silver bullion in them. If this had been true, what was the need of having any gold or silver in them at all; if it was not to regulate their value?

86. With respect to the assertion that there was no difference in common payments between guineas and Bank notes, and that guineas were not openly selling at a premium, as in Ireland, the answer was simple and decisive: if it were so, it was merely through the terrors of the penal law. At the very time of this debate three men were lying under a conviction of the crime of selling guineas for more than 21s. They had been convicted under an old statute of Edward VI., which did not extend to Ireland, so that the reason why guineas were sold publicly at a premium in Ireland was, that there was no law against it; in England it was a criminal offence, and, in consequence of this, guineas had disappeared from circulation. But Mr. Vansittart threw out another challenge, he acknowledged that it was legal for tradesmen to make a distinction in prices, according as they were paid in money, or in Bank notes, and he denied that such a distinction existed. On this point, however, he was met with a distinct denial by Mr. Huskisson, who said "If paper were sustained at all in public estimation, it must be by a support growing out of terror, by an estimation proceeding at that moment from a consideration of a pending judgment. If this were once settled, public estimation would soon shew what it really was. In every part of the country there were already two prices; he had undoubted proof of the fact. He had in his pocket a letter from a person intimately acquainted with such matters, which said that two prices were prevalent in the country, and that the usual premium for guineas was half-acrown."

87. Mr. Sharp, a member of the Bullion Committee, adduced further facts to prove that the Bank notes were depreciated; he said it had been usual to send over specie to Guernsey to pay the troops there. Each guinea had lately been paid to the soldiers at 23s.; one regiment, however, had refused to receive them at that rate. In another case he knew of a person who had received a legacy of 1,000 guineas which was paid in specie ; he went to invest it in the funds, and, on asking the price of the 3 per cents., was told 644. But, on asking what the price would be if paid in real money, he was told, after some consideration, he might have it at 60, which was the price actually paid. So that, while the Government were arguing at Westminster that

guineas were of the same value as Bank notes, they were at the same time dishonest enough to pay them away to the soldiers at 23s.

88. Sir Francis Burdett stated that, in Jersey, Bank of England notes were at a discount of 3 per cent. as compared to the notes of their own little bank; that it was perfectly notorious that two prices were common throughout the country. He knew it from his own experience; he had been offered wine at far different prices, according as he should pay for it either in Bank notes or in specie.

89. We have now given so much space to this interesting discussion, that we can scarcely afford room to notice any of the other speeches upon the subject. When we read the arguments and evidence, which seem to be so perfectly satisfactory, according to all the usual principles that command assent, we feel some curiosity to know what was the opposing theory set up against them, and it was simply this, that the pound sterling was nothing tangible at all! It was an imaginary vision! a vague idea! an airy nothing! which never had any existence in nature at all, and that, accordingly, everything, money and bullion included, might vary in endless changes round this ideal centre. It had even less substantiality than a whiff of smoke! It was "a sense of value" communicated in some mysterious way from one person to another. Mr. Canning pursued the author of this insensate folly with unsparing ridicule in his speech. He also ably pointed out the consequence of not allowing guineas to circulate at their market value, which had been followed by their total disappearance, whereas dollars, which were beginning to disappear when they were bound down to the value of the depreciated Bank paper, were immediately restored to circulation when they were allowed to pass current at their real value. However, though he fully agreed in all the principles and reasonings of the Bullion Report, he did not think it expedient that the Bank should be called upon to resume cash payments in so short a period as two years.

90. After a debate of four nights the Committee divided on the first of Mr. Horner's resolutions, and it was negatived by a majority of 151 to 75. The fourteen next were negatived without a division, and the last was rejected by a majority of 180 to 45. Among the names of the majority was that of ROBERT PEEL.

91. The Ministry, having defeated the Bullion Committee by so great a majority, would have done well to let the matter rest. As to the matter of fact agitated between the parties, the depreciation or the non-depreciation of the Bank notes, it would be useless to waste one word more, and in arguing against so palpable a fact, the ministerial party shewed little discretion. They might easily have saved their credit by admitting the fact, but arguing that it was not expedient for the public service that so momentous a change should be made during the war. Not content, however, with procuring the total rejection of Mr. Horner's resolutions, Mr. Vansittart, in the plenitude of his power and party strength, and in the mere wantonness of tyranny, determined to drag the House through the lowest depths of ridicule and absurdity. He moved a series of resolutions which are too long to be inserted here, to the effect that there was no legal weight of bullion in the coins, beyond what the caprice of each Sovereign might dictate; that the Bank notes were merely promises to pay in these coins, and they always had been, and at that moment were held equivalent in public estimation to the legal coin of the realm, and generally accepted as such in all pecuniary transactions to which such coin is lawfully applicable, and that the price of bullion and the state of the foreign exchanges were in no way owing to excessive issues of Bank paper.

92. In introducing his resolutions Mr. Vansittart made a speech of enormous length, repeating his former views, that the state of the domestic currency had no effect upon the foreign exchanges, and, with a flight of unheard-of audacity, he, in defiance of the recorded opinion of Parliament and the unanimous testimony of all contemporary writers, made the extraordinary assertion that in 1696 and 1774 "the fall of the exchange was the cause, and not the consequence of the